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  <title>Setting a Password Policy</title>
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<h2>Setting a Password Policy</h2>



<img style="width: 370px; height: 511px;" alt="password policy" src="images/options/password_policy_tab.jpg">
<p>A password policy describes the rules that are used to create
a
password&mdash;the letters, letter cases, length, and any special
characters that are required. Some institutions require only lower case
characters while others will demand that an upper case character,
number, and special character be used, as well as a specified minimum
length. In general, it is a good idea to use the longest allowable
length and the largest permitted mix of characters. Please verify the
exact password requirements with the entities that require them.</p>



<p>The <b>Password Policy</b> dialog allows you to
set the global password generation policy. This policy can be
overridden
temporarily and passwords manually edited at any time in the <b>Edit/View
Entry</b> dialog.</p>



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<h3>Selecting Password Rules</h3>



<p>Each "use" item (e.g., <span style="font-weight: bold;">use digits</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">use symbols</span>, etc.) checked in the dialog forces <b>Password Safe</b>
to
include the specified characters in the passwords it generates. Each
password will also be generated to the specified length (no shorter, no
longer). The only exception to this is the <b>Use hexadecimal
digits only</b> check box. When checked, passwords will include
those characters that represent <a href="JavaScript:popup.TextPopup(strHexDec,popFont,9,9,-1,-1)">hexadecimal
digits</a> only. Selecting this option, disables all other check
boxes.</p>
<p>Selecting<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>Generate pronounceable passwords </span>will cause <span style="font-weight: bold;">Password Safe </span>to
generate a "nonsense" word that should be pronounceable, such as
"ingstria", "ringsony", etc. This is useful when you need a password
that is both secure and relatively easy to remember without <span style="font-weight: bold;">Password Safe</span>. Choosing this option with&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">use digits</span> and/or&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">use symbols </span>will enable replacing some letters with their "leet" equivalent, e.g., "E" may be replaced by "3", "S" by "5", etc.</p>
<p>The characters that are added when <span style="font-weight: bold;">use symbols</span> is checked are: + - = _ @ # $ % ^ &amp; ; : , . &lt; &gt; / ~ \&nbsp;[ ] ( ) { } ? ! | unless <span style="font-weight: bold;">use only easy-to-read characters</span> is selected as well, in which case the characters are only: + - = _ @ # $ % ^ &amp; &lt; &gt; / ~ \ ?</p>
<p>The letters used when <span style="font-weight: bold;">use only easy-to-read chararcters</span>
is checked are: a b c d e f g h i j k m n o p q r s t u v w x y z and A
B C D E F G H J K L M N P Q R T U V W X Y, and the digits are limited
to 3 4 6 7 8 9. </p>



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